MEPs hop into action on rabbit farming welfare

MEPs hop into action on rabbit farming welfare: Member States of the European Union are encouraging rabbit farmers to phase out conventional battery cages.

Indian pork industry benefits from UK pig semen

Indian pork industry benefits from UK pig semen: The Indian and British livestock sectors have strengthened relations after pig semen from UK animals was shipped to India for the first time.

Avian Flu Outbreaks Raise Concerns About Possible Pandemic.

Avian Flu Outbreaks Raise Concerns About Possible Pandemic. U.K. officials confirmed a fifth area in the country has been hit with the H5N8 strain of the avian flu since December. The strain has been spread from wild birds to farmed poultry, but has yet to affect humans, according to the U.K. Department of the Environment. There have been more than 40 countries reporting outbreaks of different strains of the avian flu since last November, according to World Health Organization officials. With the new avian flu outbreaks popping up in recent months, health experts have been increasingly concerned that one or more of the various strains of avian flu could mutate, increasing the risk of a dangerous new flu that could spread quickly across the globe. Normally the virus spreads among birds, often transmitted long distances by wild birds that migrate. In rare cases people in close contact to the birds become ill and the virus rarely spreads from person to person. Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said the public health community is increasingly concerned that the virus could potentially mutate. "The concern always is that they could pick up a gene that permits that kind of flu to spread readily from person to person," Schaffner said. Currently "bird flu by itself cannot do that." However, Schaffner said in recent years the medical community has developed better surveillance technology to find new outbreaks more easily. On Monday, World Health Organization said they were on "high alert" due to the avian flu outbreaks and the possibility of mutation. During an address to the WHO executive board on Monday, WHO Director Margaret Chan explained one form of the virus first detected in humans in 2015 was created "by gene-swapping among four different viruses." She urged all countries to closely watch for avian flu cases in both birds and humans to stop any new easily transmitted strain of the virus from spreading. "We cannot afford to miss the early signals," Chan said. continue

Equine veterinarians says delayed response to Hendra virus vaccine report stalls education of horse owners.

Equine veterinarians says delayed response to Hendra virus vaccine report stalls education of horse owners.Equine veterinarians say the Queensland Government's decision to delay its response to a report into the Hendra virus vaccine for horses is hampering their efforts to educate horse owners. The vaccine was developed by the CSIRO to protect horses from the deadly bat-borne virus, but some horse owners have questioned its safety.Equine Veterinarians Australia (EVA) president-elect Ben Poole said the delay meant continuing uncertainty, especially for horse owners. He said any delay in a response meant there would be a delay in implementation, pushing back action on critical issues like the speed of testing in the north, which can have consequences for horse health. source

New research strategy offers hope to pastoralists battling mystery cattle disease in southern Flinders Ranges.

South Australia's peak livestock body wants more research funding to help solve mysterious cattle deaths that have left pastoralists and vets baffled for more than a century. About 30 pastoralists from the Hawker and Craddock region have met with Livestock SA and PIRSA vets to discuss a strategy to tackle the unexplained stock deaths. Termed the "November disease", the deaths typically occur within a single cattle or sheep mob without explanation from November to February in years when there is greater rain and more pasture in paddocks. Symptoms include drooling, diarrhea, neurological problems and in almost all cases, eventually leads to death, with autopsy results showing severe liver and kidney damage, intestine inflammation and brain lesions. There are a number of theories about what could be causing the unexplained deaths with pulpy kidney suggested to be the cause in 2016, but that diagnosis has since been ruled out. Other speculated causes are bacterial or fungal toxins from soil or plant matter but ultimately, the cause remains unknown. PIRSA chief veterinary officer Roger Paskin said the sporadic nature of the disease made it difficult to investigate but thus far his team had ruled out all the known traditional bacteria, viruses and infectious conditions.Dr Paskin said understanding those "ecological triggers" for the disease would be key to getting to identifying the cause. more

Doctor pulls 6 foot-long tapeworm from a guys's mouth.

Doctors are telling of a remarkable medical case in which they had to a remove a 6-foot-long tapeworm from a man's gut by pulling it through his mouth. Live Science explains that the 48-year-old patient from India had been having stomach pains for two months before he decided to visit PVS Memorial Hospital in Kerala. During a colonoscopy, doctors discovered a segment of a pork tapeworm, a common sign that a larger tapeworm is hiding elsewhere in the body. Doctors then maneuvered a camera into the man's upper intestine, where they found what Dr. Cyriac Philips describes as the longest tapeworm he's ever seen. The worm was curled up, but as doctors began slowly pulling it out through the patient's mouth in what must have felt like an endless scarf gag, its size became clear. In the end, it measured a little over 6 feet long, doctors write in the New England Journal of Medicine. The patient—who was kindly sedated during the 1.5-hour procedure—likely became infected after eating raw or under cooked pork, per the CDC. Those who have tapeworms often don't know it because they're typically symptom-free. Another case,a 20-foot-long tapeworm caused a man to lose 22 pounds in three days. source

Male baboons and domestic violence.

Male baboons and domestic violence. Male baboons turn to domestic violence for a chance to mate and sire their own offspring. A study shows that male baboons turn to domestic violence when in a group with few fertile females so they kill infants sired by other males and attack pregnant females, causing them to miscarry, so as to have a mating chance . This behavior reduces their waiting time to breed with pregnant and nursing females, who otherwise wouldn't become sexually available again for up to a year. This study which appeared in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is a result of a long-term study of wild baboons monitored on a near-daily basis since 1971 at Amboseli. Researchers studying a baboon population around Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya found that immigrant males were responsible for roughly 2 percent of infant deaths and 6 percent of miscarriages between 1978 and 2015 and when cycling females were few, the death rates more than tripled. In situations where males have few opportunities, they resort to violence to achieve what's necessary to survive and reproduce,and When reproductive opportunities abound, this behavior is less frequent. At any given time, a troop of baboons typically contains one or two newly arrived males that have left the group where they were born in search of opportunities to reproduce and pass on their genes elsewhere. A baboon male would normally have to wait at least a year for a pregnant or lactating female to finish gestating and nursing her infant and resume cycling for a chance to sire her next offspring. When female have no baby to gestate or feed anymore , females that suffered a miscarriage or the death of an infant were ready to conceive again within 41 days. The study showed that most killer males went on to mate with the mothers of their victims.